As I sit here trying to get my head around “blogging”, I find my mind drifting back to the days when I swore that I would never have a mobile phone (about 10 years ago), and when I would adamantly declare that I could never convert over to a digital camera (about 5 years ago). In much more recent memories (a matter of months) I can recall many a discussion with friends when I would confidently declare that I would never start blogging, seeing it as a somewhat self-centered waste of time (my apologies to the blogging community for my presumptuous ideas). These ideas came about because I made a judgment based on ignorance – the cause of far too many problems in this world. I have now been convinced by a number of friends about the importance of blogging to both help my cause and share the amazing journey that I am on in starting Project Seres, and so here I am, trying to get my head around the jargon of the IT world…FTPeeing and URLing and generally driving myself crazy (I hope that this is sufficient penance to pay for my erroneous judgments of all things blogging…or is it all things blog???).

But all that aside, this first blog is both my attempt to break the ice (which is apparently the protocol in the blogging world) and get myself accustomed to the actual blog-writing process. It is difficult for me, because I am one of those people that hates the “old me” – I have no respect for the me that existed even a week ago, and I get an inward shudder when I think about reading these blogs again in a month or so. But at the same time, I love sharing myself and my experiences with others in the hope that this may inspire people to make positive change in their own lives, and this promises to be a way to do so…so fingers crossed the blog experience won’t be as painful as I am envisaging.
Apart from this, what else can I share about myself? I am an Australian living in Guatemala, and I feel a long way from home. I have lived in Guatemala once before for just under a year, and I often wonder what it is that has drawn me back here. Perhaps it is the beauty of the country, perhaps the strength of the people, perhaps the opportunities to create something and make a real difference in the world…I think that it is more than likely a combination of many of these things and more that I am still discovering (when I find out, I promise to blog about it).
I feel enormously privileged to have grown up in a place as peaceful, beautiful and effortless as Australia, and I want to find a way to help others that have not had the opportunities that I have had to discover some of these joys.
I believe that climate change is a real and serious threat to the way of life for all citizens of this planet – but I also believe that it offers us an opportunity. It offers us an opportunity to assess the way that we have been living our lives (particularly in the developed countries), and make small adjustments so that we are more in tune with our families, our communities, and the environment. I believe that climate change is an opportunity to create positive change at all levels of society, and that is what I am trying to do here in Guatemala. In the second half of 2008, my life took an abrupt turn when a series of health complications (resulting in 4 operations in under 3 months) and one “near-death” experience caused me to reassess my life, and turned my path from that of the corporate world to the one that I am on today. While sometimes the road has been hard and the choices difficult, it is a decision that I have never looked back on.
The purpose of this blog is to share this journey, this experience, and the work of Project Seres with others. It is a story about taking what you truly believe in, and finding the courage to put aside all your fears and go for it. It is about realizing that life is not supposed to be a sequence of 5’s and 2’s, where we spend 5 days waiting for the weekend, and all weekend dreading the coming Monday. When I last worked in an office, I remember saying to some colleagues: “imagine if you liked working more than you liked the weekend?” The told me straight out that it wasn’t possible. This blog is about challenging that reality, because when you are doing what you really believe in, life is no longer a serious of 5’s and 2’s with a 4 week break.

This blog is to encourage people to dream, to think outside the box, to be inspired to make a difference. It is about not just listening, but actually living the inspirational words of the likes of Ghandi, Churchill, Aristotle and many others (which will no doubt appear in my blog), and being the change you want to see in the world. And finally, this blog is about living in Guatemala. Having been here once before, I know that this in itself is a topic sufficiently full of experiences and adventures that it could be a blog in its own right. Just the simple act of living in Guatemala has a way of playing with your emotions, and there will be days when I am heartened and motivated, and those when I am discouraged and saddened by the difficulties that the Guatemalan people face.
And so, as I sit here in clear view of my mobile phone and camera, finishing off my first blog I can’t help but wonder what crazy new technology will become part of my life a few years from now. I must be sure not to make any bold declarations on my blog, because they will certainly come back to prove me wrong! If you enjoy following my blog please feel free to leave comments or contact me via the Contact form, and if you want to find out more about the work and progress of Project Seres, please visit our website (www.projectseres.org). I look forward to sharing this journey with you.

Corrina